Be an ally to lesbians: stop using LGBTQ+

[Shedbuilder]

I'm a lesbian and I mentally parted company with Stonewall and began opposing it and a lot of other LGB organisations when they added the T and then the Q and then all the other identity letters to the original LGB.

LGB people are united by same-sex attraction. TQ and whatever are linked by their insistence on identity — defining themselves by feelings or whatever. LGB people are united by their experience of homophobia. Transgenderism, and its attack on sex, is inherently homophobic. The two cannot and could never exist comfortably together. As soon as Stonewall added the T to their constituency, it began working against its core community.

Stonewall and other organisations have done this by force. Uncoupling the LGB from the TQ+ is one of the most important things anyone with a GC stance can do.

Please, let us work towards making the letters LGBTQ+ a badge of ignorance and shame, not something that employers should be plastering everywhere as proof of how progressive they are.

@SapphosRock

DuDuDuLangaLangaBingBong okay so if we're working purely on same sex attraction what about Katy Perry types who kissed a girl once and liked it? Are they in or out the LGB gang? Because there's a hell of a lot more of them than there is trans women and I'm not sure they have faced the same prejudices.

To suggest that every woman who kissed a girl once but aren’t actually lesbians, should be included in a group for lesbians, gay men and bi people sounds awfully homophobic.

Katy Perry types?

Keep hold of that Hoodie Purple

Eh LillianBland? Why would it be homophobic?

How does one police same sex attraction anyway? Surely any straight woman could say they were a lesbian and infiltrate the group. Before we know it safe, lesbian only spaces would be full of straight women telling lesbians how they should behave and what they should think.

Melia It's really not acceptable.

Jacki

To suggest that every woman who kissed a girl once but aren’t actually lesbians, should be included in a group for lesbians, gay men and bi people sounds awfully homophobic.

So not just me thinking that then.

@SapphosRock

Eh LillianBland? Why would it be homophobic?

How does one police same sex attraction anyway? Surely any straight woman could say they were a lesbian and infiltrate the group. Before we know it safe, lesbian only spaces would be full of straight women telling lesbians how they should behave and what they should think.

No, you don’t have to worry about that. It’s not straight women that are trying to ‘infiltrate‘ lesbian spaces. You and all the other posters know that it’s male bodied people who insist on the right to do that.

@JackiFazaki

To suggest that every woman who kissed a girl once but aren’t actually lesbians, should be included in a group for lesbians, gay men and bi people sounds awfully homophobic.

So not just me thinking that then.

Definitely not just you!

I’m someone who fits in that group but a bit of experimentation does not a sexual orientation make!
Acting like people can’t tell the difference is disingenuous at best.

In all my years, I've never come across straight women infiltrating lesbian groups and taking them over. Hilarious.

In all my years, I've never come across straight women infiltrating lesbian groups and taking them over. Hilarious.

Me neither! Or any other non-lesbians. Because they're lesbian groups.

But people like Fanta will just keep on insisting they're full of men.

www.reddit.com/r/actuallesbians/

This subreddit is absolutely chock full of males-who-identify-as-females.

I don't surround myself with only people just like me; I make sure we have a diverse team with differing perspectives, strengths and talents that help us all to work to shared goals. Our differences allow us achieve at a higher level as we can tap into different abilities and consider different viewpoints.

Well, if we can take the ad absurdum the other way from the 'exclusion' direction - if that's the case, what's the point of the community acronym in the first place? If ever expanding inclusion is the virtue here, who is the gatekeeper for the LGBTQIA+ community? If anyone can be part of the expansive group of diverse identities, and at the same time it's a group of people who in some way don't fit into the norms, then it's both by definition creating a division between LGBTQIA+ people and people who fit the norms, and completely pointless.

They only fill up with males because the Lesbians leave.
I was not aware of how bad the problem for Lesbians was until some women started talking about it on reddit.
I had thought the cotton ceiling misogynists were understood to be predators. Turns out there are dozens of transbians on Facebook who refuse to take no for an answer. Lesbian groups have to let transbians join or FB closes them down.

@SapphosRock

In all my years, I've never come across straight women infiltrating lesbian groups and taking them over. Hilarious.

Me neither! Or any other non-lesbians. Because they're lesbian groups.

But people like Fanta will just keep on insisting they're full of men.

Why even suggest it, then, if you don’t believe that male bodied people are saying they’re lesbians? Why talk about straight girls pretending to be lesbians? You’re so busy trying to prove that the OP is wrong, that you’re just throwing out silly, made up scenarios. Why so desperate?

Well, if we can take the ad absurdum the other way from the 'exclusion' direction - if that's the case, what's the point of the community acronym in the first place?

As I understood it the purpose is to define the queer and transgender umbrella people as the norm and the non trans people as the deviant minority who need not be considered.

Fanta's point I understood as saying that: the only people trying to take over women's spaces were men.
I agree with that. That's my experience. It's men who do not like women to self organise, and they have a real problem, in my experience, when lesbians come together to organise around issues which affect them, as lesbians.

What motive would straight women have to infiltrate lesbian spaces? I honestly can't see what's in it for them.

What motive would female-attracted males who identify as women have for infiltrating lesbian spaces? ...not quite so difficult to deduce.

I've been thinking of the girls I kissed back in the day. Sweet times.
I don't think I looked like Katy Perry.

More Perry, as in Kevin and Perry.

Sappho, who are "people like Fanta"?

I didn't have to do much to find a large chunk of males on Diva Facebook, all I did was open Facebook, search Diva and there it was, a video of 6 womxn - 2 men, you can spot them as they have the most prominent tits and male voices, and 4 women all answering questions you should never ask lesbians. The cringiest was the one about which one is the man.

So 2 out of 6 lesbian womxn on the pride diva video area men, but I'm the one with the vivid imagination. Yeah, OK.

FantaOra, I’ve sent you a pm.

This subreddit is absolutely chock full of males-who-identify-as-males

Because lesbians, and women in general aren't allowed to have anything without males.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/comments/d5diub/justtoomakeclearrthatactuallesbianssthe/?utmsource=amp&utmmmedium=&utmcontent=postt_body

How does one police same sex attraction anyway? Surely any straight woman could say they were a lesbian and infiltrate the group. Before we know it safe, lesbian only spaces would be full of straight women telling lesbians how they should behave and what they should think.

I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt even to my own detriment but that and the Katy Perry comment are just too ridiculous even for me.

I find it interesting that so many straight women on this thread are invested in breaking the LGB away from the T when it doesn't affect straight women at all. Also interesting that not a single trans person has come on this thread to comment even though it does directly affect them.

Yet there is an insistence that straight women would never interfere in the business of lesbians but trans women do it all the time.

Oh there you go, telling women not to support women. I bet you don’t tell women not support male bodied people who identify as trans, do you? Straight or lesbian, the one think we all have in common is the fact that we’re women, so why would you want to hear from male bodied people who identify as trans, as they have absolutely nothing in common with lesbians?

Well, it’s not as if Stonewall are a friend to lesbians nowadays. I appreciate the support from straight allies.

What about bi women, Sapphos? Are we allowed to have an opinion on whether the T has anything to do with the LGB?

It's a legitimate question.

Let's say I decide to use my life savings to open a refuge for cats. As time goes by, people keep asking me to look after dogs.

I quite like dogs, & I want to help homeless dogs, but they turn out to be increasingly problematic.

They take up huge amounts of space & reduce the number of cats I could help. They bark constantly for attention. Many of the cats have dog related trauma & are miserable. Some of the dogs try to attack the cats.

Eventually, I decide that I won't take in any more dogs. It's just not fair on the cats, & at heart I'm a cat person.

Sorry dogs. Someone else can worry about the dogs though; my plate is full with the cats.

Would that be reasonable?